Scoot, Skip, Jump, Lime and Spin

Time to revisit transportation planning in cities and countries to choose the most environment-friendly, comfortable and safe options

Four companies — Scoot, Jump, Lime and Spin — received permits to offer shared electric-scooters in San Francisco earlier this month, in a fairly neat evaluation process with clearly assigned weightings for sustainability, among other things. The process can serve as a useful benchmark for other cities looking at rolling out new mobility services. 

There are four aspects of the San Francisco exercise which stood out:

Scoring smartly: The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency issued permits to four operators from the 11 applications it received, based on their total score on eight criteria. 

The highest score was for responses “that include robust, unique or innovative approaches demonstrating the highest level of commitment and ability to solving known challenges and concerns and substantially exceeding the minimum requirements.” 

Scoot scored the highest, followed by Spin (a Ford company), Jump (an Uber subsidiary) and Lime.

Staggered growth: Scoot is permitted to operate 1,000 e-scooters while the other three start with permission for 500 each, increasing to 750 in December and 1,000 by February if each company meets the terms and conditions laid out. 

Each operator is to pay a fixed charge ($75) per scooter to finance the installation of new bike racks. 

Smooth transition from pilot programme: The scooters started life as dockless micro-mobility vehicles, faced some resistance from the public, and have emerged in a more refined format, all in a matter of a couple of years. San Francisco’s transport authority reviewed 12 applications and more than 800 pages of proposals before deciding to permit Scoot and Skip (Toyota is an investor in the latter company) to offer services beginning October 15, 2018 for one year under a pilot programme. A mid-pilot evaluation showed that “powered scooter share systems can serve the public interest when properly regulated.” The pilot was thus converted to a formal Powered Scooter Share Permit Program, under which the four licensees got the right to operate from October 15, 2019.

Tracking complaints: Operators of the e-scooter shared service are required to track all complaints, and their resolution. 

They would also need to share the details of complaints and their resolution with the transportation authority on a regular basis. 

In India, sales of electric two-wheelers have slowed down recently, though the vehicle of choice for last-mile connectivity in many cities seems to be the electric rickshaw. In and around the capital city of Delhi, their number has reportedly crossed 1 million. Much of this growth is unplanned and unregulated, leading to further chaos in areas where they ply their trade, since there are no designated parking spots, or passenger pick-up or drop points for the e-rickshaws.

The transition to shared and electric mobility, and the availability of different options under the micro-mobility banner, provides an opportunity to revisit transportation planning in cities and countries, so that the most environment friendly, comfortable and safe options are picked. According to BloombergNEF estimates, investors poured over $84 billion into mobility-service providers in ride hailing, car sharing, bike sharing, scooter sharing and ride sharing between Q1 2014 and the end of Q2 2019. 

The author is the Editor – Global Policy for BloombergNEF. She can be reached at vgombar@bloomberg.net